The Greatest Gift
by Epics
Summary: Kallen and her mother finally talk about Lelouch, about who he was and what he meant to Kallen, and just how similar Kallen is to her mother. "I only need you with me. You are his greatest gift to me." Takes place after Turn 25, spoilers to the ending.


**Nearly a year had passed since the fall of the Holy (Demon) Emperor of Britannia, Lelouch vi Britannia.**

The day started off like any other for Kallen, she woke to her mother's caring call and the angry ring of her alarm, and slid slowly out of bed. Sitting on the floor she looked up at her calendar, at the next day not marked off in red ink. "It's Saturday," she groaned, before climbing back into bed and shutting off her alarm, "Just five more… hours."

Her mother woke her an hour later. "Your breakfast is getting cold," she told her, caressing her head. "I want to talk to you about something today." She smiled.

Kallen looked up at her mom through one half-open eye. There was no way she could say no to that smile. She had fought tooth and nail to see it again, and lost something very important for it. Sometimes she wondered if the loss had been worth it and every time she did she hated herself for thinking it. It sullied his sacrifice.

"Alright, I am getting up," she whined. She rubbed her head and yawned, more like roared.

"I'll heat up your breakfast again," her mom told her, standing up from her bed.

As she got out of bed and dressed, Kallen wondered what her mother could want to talk to her about. With no plans in mind for the day, Kallen threw on her yellow tank top, some blue, short jeans, and her Guren-key necklace.

Like every other day, she stopped for a moment and looked at the pictures on her wall. She smiled at it and thought to herself, "Thank you."

Rushing into the kitchen, she sat at the counter and waited patiently for her mom to take a seat before starting to eat. Kallen was not sure if she should start a conversation or wait for her mother, there was a sense of something hanging in the air. She chose to wait for her mother.

Kallen's mother spent the breakfast looking at her daughter, smiling, and occasionally glancing into her daughter's room, looking at something specific. When Kallen had swallowed the last bite of her food, her mother asked, "Who is he?"

"Who is who?" Kallen asked with a confused look on her face.

"That boy," her mom said, pointing into Kallen's room towards her wall of pictures. Over the last year the number of pictures had steadily grown. There were pictures of a little platinum haired girl and her new guardian, a tall handsome blonde, of a happy couple and their newborn child, of a beautiful wheelchair-bound brunette and her masked guard, and finally pictures that had grown far more numerously than any other of one black haired boy. "The one you look at every morning and smile."

Kallen hesitated for a moment. "He was someone important," she oozed out, hoping not to be heard. She could not lie to her mother, not about this. She was as lucid as newly washed glass.

"He reminds me of someone," her mother thought aloud for a moment. Kallen had never told her mother that that innocent looking boy had been the same one who conquered the world. She hadn't told her a lot of things about him, in fact. "He was someone important? To you?" her mother asked, finally.

"To a lot of people," Kallen replied, somberly. She wanted to say yes, very much so, but it only brought back painful memories. "He was important to a lot of people, and he gave them almost everything they had wanted." She wanted to cry. She had spent months overcoming her attachment, putting it aside, and now all that work had instantly been abolished.

"We can't have everything we always want," her mother mused. "You remind me of someone, Kallen."

"Who?" Kallen asked.

Kallen's mother waited a moment before replying. "Me," she said finally. "You love him, I can tell it from how you look at his pictures."

Kallen opened her mouth to say something but nothing came.

"He loved you back, didn't he?"

"I-I don't know," Kallen stuttered out. "He never told me… Even when I kissed him and asked him, he remained silent. He kept me out of everything until he was gone."

"You do know," her mother told her, wiping a tear from her daughter's cheek. "Or you wouldn't be keeping his picture there to remind you every morning."

"He never told me," Kallen repeated. "I never told him," she wheezed.

"Do I have to tell you that I love you every day? Some things you just know, you can feel them with your heart or see them in someone's actions."

"He kept me out of it, I wanted to follow him, but he kept me on the other side…" Kallen was mumbling.

"He kept you safe," Kallen's mom told her.

"How can you know that?" Kallen asked, almost demanded.

"Emperor Lelouch vi Britannia," her mother said, simply, "I've heard you say his name. The rest was not hard to put together. The boy you look at so fondly could not have been a demon."

"He wasn't… He wasn't!" Kallen stated. "He gave the world everything. He gave us all our dreams, hopes, and desires, but no one knows. No one thanks him. No one can know."

"You thank him, and I thank him for you," Kallen's mother told her. "He is like your father… and what your father was to me. He gave me my precious children to love for all my life, and that is all that I need even if he is gone. That boy gave you something else to love and protect, didn't he?"

Kallen hesitated, looking down at the Guren key, but finally nodded. "His dreams for me and the world, he gave them to me."

"You are so much like me," her mother noted. "What will you do with them?"

"What I promised I would, live on and move forward, but…" she paused, thinking it through, "I don't want to leave him behind."

"You never will, dear. I never left what I felt for you father behind, I never forgot him. He gave me what I wanted and needed. We just have to move forward, take a step forward everyday, and be thankful for everything we were given by those we loved. Do you feel alone, Kallen?"

Kallen shook her head. "No, he's always with me. I am living for him and for myself."

"Then you need to embrace what you feel for him, and what he felt for you. Don't let it bog you down but don't push it aside, it will only keep coming back. He wouldn't have wanted that for you. Move forward with him in your heart and love what he gave you."

There was an awkward silence.

"I guess I won't have grandchildren to look forward too," her mother joked. "He must have been someone very special. I wonder what your children would have looked like, red hair and violet eyes, or maybe black hair and beautiful blues."

Kallen turned red as a beet. "They'd have been beautiful," Kallen said under her breathe. She had dreamed of it, many times, what a happy life with Lelouch would have been like.

Her mother cupped her face, "But I have him to thank for my beautiful daughter being here with me. Whatever you decide to do with your heart I will support you. Sometimes life throws us a curve ball like this, a love that sticks with us."

"Right now," Kallen began, crying happily, "I only need you with me. You are his greatest gift to me."

... _Thank You, Lelouch. I love you._ _I always will._


End file.
